


Strange Night

by tornyourdress



Category: Scrubs
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornyourdress/pseuds/tornyourdress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a strange night, and it's about to get stranger. JD on New Year's Eve, post-S8 finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Night

New Year's Eve, a party mixing his hospital colleagues old and new, and his pregnant wife is oohing and aahing over all the kids. J.D. is in the kitchen with a beer and a former mentor and things are getting a little strange. See, he's known since he left Sacred Heart that he's made the right decision, leaving behind Turk and Carla and Perry to start a new life and be closer to his son. And he wrote down what Perry said when he didn't realise J.D. was there, transcribed it into his journal, and rereads it every so often, which keeps the warm glow in his chest alive year after year. And he sees Turk and Carla a lot, once a week at the very least, and he's grown used to having his own life and not having a best friend at work.

What he hasn't realised, what he's only just realising, is how much he's missed Perry, and what's strange is that he's saying this, out loud, and Perry's letting him. He keeps waiting for the speech about how much Perry doesn't miss him, until finally he just says, in frustration, "Seriously, Perry, you going to jump in any time soon?"

Perry just shrugs, and keeps looking at him, and J.D. lets out a deep breath. "You miss me too," he says. Not gloating. Not delighted. Just matter-of-fact.

Maybe a little delighted, on the inside.

"Newbie –" Perry starts, and then stops. "J.D. Yeah."

There's still a part of J.D. that wants to jump up and shriek at the use of his name, and the admission, but he's older now, wiser. So he waits until Perry leaves the room before letting out just the smallest of yelps.

The night's about to get stranger.

***

He loves Elliot. She's carrying his child. He doesn't quite want to say that he's loved her for as long as he's known her, because he knows it wouldn't be true, but he's loved her for a long time, and he feels like this marriage is really something he's doing right.

He loves Carla and Turk. They're family. He can't imagine life without either of them, but he also can't imagine ever being in love with them. Most of the time. Once he imagined what it would be like, to be the one who'd fallen for her, to be the one who'd married her. And once – okay, twice – four times – maybe five – he thought about what it would be like if he and Turk ever, you know. In those fantasies Carla always had to die off, and that made him sad, but he's always known, in that way he thinks best friends maybe just know, that if there was ever a guy, it'd be Turk. (Except that when he started to tell Turk, he got cut off, and he's pretty sure Turk never wants to admit out loud that he feels the same way.)

He loves his brother, and he loves his son, and getting to watch Sam turn into a person is about the coolest thing that he's ever been able to do.

And that's all. Those are the people in his life that he can say, hand on his heart, that he loves.

***

Except that it's never been that simple.

***

Once – maybe twice – one of those fantasies he used to have, where he was Dr Cox's best buddy, go-to guy, acknowledged equal, and possible partner in fighting crime on weekends, turned into something more. They'd be conquering some unknown illness or trekking through the jungle or at a theme park together and then suddenly J.D. would be pushed up against a wall and have a tongue in his mouth. He didn't think too much about it. His fantasies got out of control like that all the time. It didn't mean anything.

And it was only twice. Three times, maybe. Five. Ten. Twenty.

***

The next time they're alone together it's maybe twenty minutes to midnight and he's outside, taking a moment in the cold fresh air before going back in to the others. Inside Jordan, Carla, Kim and a couple of the women from work are swapping childbirth horror stories as Elliot listens, and he knows he should probably be there holding her hand, talking her down from some kind of neurotic crazy hysteria, but the truth is he knows he's not needed.

He thought she was going to be so freaked out by this pregnancy, either because of what it was doing to her body or because of worrying about the future and being a good mother, but she's so calm these days it's almost unsettling. Quiet. Nice. But unsettling.

"They're talking about cervixes in there," Perry says, leaning against the door jamb.

"Is that the plural?" J.D. is genuinely curious for a moment.

Perry shrugs. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again.

"Were you going to crack a joke about how I should re-he-he-_heally_ know the answer because I have so many girl parts?" J.D. asks.

"I might have been planning to make some kind of comment along those lines, yes. Old habits."

He sounds sad. "You sound sad," J.D. says, because he hasn't quite got out of the habit of sharing things that come into his head without filtering them.

Perry has a few tries at it. "Jordan and I –" Pause, stop, start again. "Things at the hospital are just –" Exhale, hands on the back of his head, a little pacing. "I miss you. Life's too damn short, and I miss you."

J.D. doesn't know what to say. He's looking at this man who he used to think of as a mentor, as a potential father figure. Only now he can see that he doesn't need a father figure.

"Oh, for god's sake, Newbie, say something. You're good at this touchy-feely-caring . . . you know what, I take it back. Life's too damn long, is what it is, and every day I get to walk around that hospital knowing you're not there makes me so happy I, well, gosh, Newbie, I don't even want to start drinking before noon anymore." Big smile, fake smile. Back to being a jerk.

"Are you done?" J.D.'s half hurt, half amused. And then, gently, "What's going on?" He reaches out to put a hand on Perry's shoulder. It isn't forcibly removed.

***

J.D.'s always been good at figuring out which fantasies would be incredibly awesome but incredibly impossible, and which would be incredibly awesome and maybe possible someday in the future, and which would be incredibly awesome and stood a decent chance of actually happening especially if you put in a bit of work.

Occasionally he considers the fact that sometimes what you want is the fantasy, for it to be able to happen inside your head and stay there. He knows some people might think that being such a dreamer is a kind of curse, something that stops you from living your life fully, but he doesn't ever want to stop fantasising and dreaming and letting the impossible happen inside his brain.

He does less of it these days, but right now he kind of feels like he might be in one of his fantasies without realising it. In his fantasies, things happen that he has control over, but also things that are sort of random. Things that he wants to happen, and things that are strange.

***

So it's strange to have a face coming towards his, and a lean-in happening as though it can only mean one thing, and stranger still to find that they're actually kissing, mouth on mouth, instead of it all being one big joke or set-up. Oh god oh god oh god this is really happening. It's really happening, and there's a hand cupping his jaw and the taste of scotch and Elliot's pretend-homemade and really store-bought dip and something uniquely Perry in his mouth. There's a body against his and it isn't Elliot's and he's not dreaming and this is actually Perry Cox kissing him outside his house in this new life he has.

This wasn't supposed to ever be a possibility.

***

The one who finds them is Jordan. "You missed the countdown," she says, a half-empty glass in her hand.

J.D. feels like a kid who's been caught sneaking candy before dinner. He can't look at Perry.

"Jordan, I'm so sorry," he says, almost automatically, not sure whether he means it or not.

She looks at them. "S'okay, there's always next year. Perry, there's a very cute doctor in here I'm going to take home, so if you don't mind I think you'd better crash here." She disappears back inside, and returns a moment later with the aforementioned very cute doctor. "Night!" she says brightly.

That's Jordan for you. But.

"I have a pregnant wife in there," J.D. says quietly, nodding towards the door.

And maybe if he were a better person, a better husband, that would be the end of it. But as soon as he's said it, as soon as he sees that flash, blink and you'd miss it, of hurt in Perry's eyes, he knows that there's something here that he can't walk away from.

***

So in the first hour of this new year, he takes Perry up to the guest room, and next door there are kids sleeping, and next to that is the room he shares with Elliot _his wife_, and he cheats.

If it was a fantasy she'd have died tragically or run off with an old boyfriend before this happened.

"Hey, remember the first time we had lunch together?" J.D. sometimes enjoys reminiscing after sex, tracing the path that's led him here.

Perry grunts, and runs his teeth lightly over J.D.'s shoulder as the nostalgia continues. Harder when J.D. talks about that speech. "And on my last day – ow! – when you thought I wasn't there . . ."

"J.D.," Perry says, and something about the way he says it makes J.D. stop talking for a moment.

"Except you knew I was," J.D. says, half to himself. It's strange to be with someone, naked, and then have them suddenly strip off another layer after that.

They're quiet for a while, and then J.D. puts his clothes back on and goes back downstairs to the party.

***

The guests have mostly left. Elliot's sitting there talking to Carla and Turk, and Ted's passed out on the couch.

For a second it's almost as though nothing's changed in his life in the last couple of hours. And then he waits for them to see that something's new, but it's late and they're tired and all he can do is smile and say, "Perry's upstairs in the guest room. Little J.D. and Jack are up in the kids' room."

They nod like it's normal for that to happen. He thinks about the fact that Perry has a kid named after him, and he has a kid named after Perry, and he wonders if they see more than they're letting on.

But it's late and they're tired and he doesn't really want to think about that right now.

***

He doesn't know what he's going to do. It's been a strange night, and maybe when he wakes up he'll discover that the lines between reality and fantasy are back to where they should be, and that none of it really happened.

He sits on the stairs, trying to decide which bedroom to walk into. Finally he pushes open a door and watches the kids sleep. He'll decide in the morning, when it's light out and he's sure he's not dreaming. He'll decide then whether the fantasy is worth it.

He'll decide whether it's just been a strange night, or the first night of a new life. In the morning. He pretends it'll be easier then.


End file.
